New Top Chef Masters cast revealed

Chef Curtis Stone will play host to these Chefs:

Hugh Acheson - Five & Ten, The National, Gosford Wine
- Floyd Cardoz - New Danny Meyer restaurant
- John Currence - City Grocery Restaurant Group
- Traci Des Jardins - Jardinière, Mijita Cocina Mexicana and Public House and Manzanita
- George Mendes – ALDEA
- Mary Sue Milliken - Border Grill Restaurants and Truck
- Naomi Pomeroy – Beast
- Suvir Saran – Dévi
- John Rivera Sedlar – Playa
- Alex Stratta – Stratta
- Celina Tio - JULIAN Restaurant
- Sue Zemanick - Gautreau’s

Link to full article and pics here

Ramsay sacks Montreal staff?

Storied Montreal eatery to get the Ramsay treatment

From the Montreal Gazette, thanks Suds.

Ongoing Discussions About Food Icons: The Bacon Cheeseburger: m:brgr review

Slumming it @ m:brgr

M:BRGR ranked #2, behind Buns Hamburger House, in the 2010 Mirror Best of Montreal burger category. The is rather fascinating because the two places are complete opposites, so how do we explain these burger rankings? Buns is no-thrills hole in the wall eating. People complain that Montreal does not allow street cart food but it has begat some interesting food joints and Buns is an example. M:BRGR is all about style and hype. 

Location, location, location, Buns has a prime great spot on the Main for that 3 a.m. post last call bite. This clientele, at least I assume, does represent a major portion of the Mirror’s readership and when asked to name their favorite burger these people must have Buns on their mind. How many people have had had one of these 3 a.m. burgers? When you consider the quality to price ratio, Buns is a really good burger bet but hell, Whoppers taste really good if you have had enough to drink. The way Buns restaurants are set up, unpretentious, they have nothing to hide behind and their focus is on their food. M:BRGR’s success in the surveys is not so much about location and good food but rather dedicated effort in creating a reputation as Montreal’s prime location for gourmet burgers by creating an image.

Construction:

M:BRGR is like one of those a velvet rope clubs when it comes to their burgers. Buns is like drinking at Le Bifteck on the Main. M:BRGR is a place to be seen eating a hamburger so combined with the velvet rope it is about dressing up. How does this work? Simple, create status with your burgers. First pick your meat, there is the basic “AAA” beef but you can go all the way up to Kobe. Condiments, yes, two of them are free with your basic burger, tomato and “Moishes” pickle slice. The more expensive meat selections include V.I.P. ingredients like truffle aioli. 

The bun selection at M:BRGR is a little less sexy with regular, whole wheat and the lettuce wrap, that I assume is something for the carb conscious generation, as possible options. Speaking of sexy, the staff look like cast offs from Next Top Model but if this is not the case with your server there is some sort of “it” factor guaranteed. The host that sat me looked like the Smith Jerrod character from Sex in the City when he worked at a hip New-York restaurant. Remember the velvet rope? This place is designed to look high end trendy so why stop at the burgers? Anything besides the above mentioned meat, tomato, pickle and bun comes with an extra charge. In reading the menu I was scared that I would be charged for the mustard and ketchup and thus ensues the whole burger status vibe. The condiment options are amazing in range and scope and you could drive the price of your burger way up especially if you went with some of the Kobe and truffle options. This is the whole burger bar concept but it seems to be about quantity rather than quality. Proving our point there is a $100 burger option on the menu.

Embarrassingly, or is it shamefully, we chose some of the modest selections for our burger. We did this not just as a way of keeping the competition fair but also to see what a stripped down M:BRGR tastes like. What are the basic building blocks of this uber burger joint? The vast selection of condiments is a great way of charging extra but also to take focus away from your basic product. Remember this is a burger joint. We chose the “AAA” meat ($8.75), regular bun, cheddar cheese ($1.25) with “House Smoked” apple bacon ($2.50) and voila the $12.50 hamburger, with taxes you are closing in on $14.25 for a basic bacon cheeseburger with tomato and pickle slice. 

The $15 burger

The verdict:

Going to M:BRGR I was expecting a lot because I had heard and read the hype but that is what this place is about. Have you heard the news? You can order a burger with truffles, you can order a hamburger that costs $100. Great topics of discussions but what about the food? Is grilled pear really good on a hamburger? I have not tried this but it almost sounds like a joke. 

One word: bland, bland and bland... oops sorry

I was a bit surprised, since they claim to be burger kings, I thought I would be asked how my burger should be cooked. Despite all the luxury and opulence, or rather distracting choices, it is cooked the way they see fit. This is not a negative point because if they are the experts they should know best. The free condiments pickle and tomato take a cue from the fast food chains because they are micro thin and add no flavor to your burger experience. The apple “House Smoked” bacon offered no special qualities or flavors except that it was just bacon. M:BRGR has dressed up the fast food approach and charges you extra for it. You want condiments sure but get ready to pay for them. You need these condiments because there basic burger is a bland experience. By being bland you are taking the safe route this is obvious from the size of your pickle. This burger was nothing special and fails to live up to the hype and price. M:BRGR seems to be about $TATU$ rather than good food. Save your dough and eat at Buns. 

You've been served: Top Chef Canada contestants announced

 Top Chef Canada will premiere April 11, 2011 on Food Network.

Click here for the full list of contestants. If you click on the names you will be taken to their audition videos.

From our Kitchen: The Umami Burger

With Michael Symon's Yo! Burger making headlines Adam Fleischman's Umami burger seems like yesterday's news.

Even though we have never tasted a Fleischman burger we attempted our own version at home. The Umami burger, according to their website, consists of "house ground beef, oven roasted tomatoes, caramelized onions, parmesan frico, sauteed shitake mushrooms and house made ketchup."

We used ciabatta bread, our ketchup and oven roasted tomatoes followed Heston Blumenthal's recipe for pizza sauce. Each patty used a quarter pound of meat, 70% filet, that we ground at home, and 30% butcher ground beef. The other ingredients, parmesan tile, caramelized onions and sauteed shitake mushrooms were rather straight forward in preparation.

Overall we really liked this burger, we loved the shitake mushrooms and will use them again as a condiment on our hamburgers. A very satisfying experience, we suspect Fleischman's ketchup is  sweeter than our tomato sauce, back to the drawing board, we will definitely try this inspiration again.

Open Face

Cross section

Michael Symon smashes the competition at Burger Bash

Iron Chef Symon takes top honours at the annual Burger Bash that is part of the South Beach Wine & Food Festival.

The Yo! Burger, features fried salami, provolone cheese, pickled onion and Symon's signature shasha (spicy) sauce and pickled onion.

Link to stories here

Chef Google to the rescue: new filter to find your recipes

New Google filter will help you find your recipes.

Now if they could only come up with a filter to get the winning loto numbers.

Link to article here.

The High Lights and Anita Lo's night

Anita Lo brings a feast of new flavours to koko

Some great pics, from the Montreal Gazette, of Chef Lo's plates at the High Lights Festival.

From our kitchen

We were very inspired by Heston Blumenthal's pizza and following his recipe we really liked some of the techniques and tips. In particular, we were dazzled by the sauce and found the dough handling techniques, especially when shaping your pizza, extremely useful. We integrated some of these techniques into our own pizza with nice results.

Our basic dough recipe sat in the fridge for three days and had two risings. We used Blumenthal's technique of adding something sweet (we want to try maple syrup) to our water and then mixed it with our flour only. After letting our dough rest for an hour we added the instant yeast and salt. We used Blumenthal's sauce, buffalo mozzarella, prosciutto, basil, arugula and parmesan.

And the results...

Before Blumenthal...

and after.

Wolfgang drops the Puck and releases Oscar menu

From ABC news:

"The celebrity chef said the meal will be filled with international flavors that include a sushi appetizer bar, the main dinner menu includes Dover sole, fresh vegetables from California and a little bit of Spanish ham. 'And then for the dessert, we have a fabulous raspberry lemon cake with a chocolate and beautiful flowers on top made out of chocolate.' "

 Link to video here.

If you are hosting an Oscar party here is a great idea, Oscar themed cocktails.

R.I.P. Ronald McDonald

The Food Liberation Army carried out their threat and killed Ronald McDonald by decapitation on February 11, 2011.

Link to video here.

Best Burger in America? The Umami Burger

From Alan Richman, GQ Magazine, according to Richman the Best Burger in America is Adam Fleischman's Umami burger. The burger looks like it is on the right track because it does not use too many condiments, usually a camouflage for cheap meat.

Link to Richman piece here.

Umami Burger website

This burger seems to be everywhere in the news because the Christian Science Monitor is also on the story.


Heston Blumenthal discusses umami with his pizza sauce recipe so we wonder if there are any similarities to Fleischman's ketchup - "Hello marketing? Product idea and name... Fleischman's Umami Ketchup."

Both Chefs use oven roasted tomatoes and Blumenthal's sauce is amazing so there is only one way to find out, off to the kitchen for some experimentation. Results and pics to come soon...

Coming soon to a television near you: the incredible rotating chicken channel.

From the Daily Brew, Swiss Chalet is creating a channel that will feature a rotating chicken on a rotisserie.

Top Chef Master Anita Lo in Montreal for High Lights Festival

Top Chef Masters' competitor is one of many featured chefs for the upcoming High Lights Fest

Link to article here

For info on the High Lights Festival click here.

The cake stays in the picture: fashion imitates art but food imitates fashion

From NJ.com, Cake Boss, Buddy Valastro, was featured in Isacc Mizrahi's fashion show showcasing his new line  - CAKE.


Mizrahi's CAKE line, inspired by the work of artist Wayne Thiebaud, became the inspiration for the Cake Boss' creations who strut his stuff on the catwalk.

After watching the video, link here, we are left we one question, are the models wearing cakes on their heads?